Re: [wg-c] trademark law & new gTLDs

[Milton Mueller <mueller@syr.edu>]

Rita M. Odin wrote:

> Because: (1) the likelihood of confusion analysis does not depend upon the classification of the goods/services but, rather, upon the relatedness of the goods/services, which is a fact based determination (i.e., there can be a likelihood of confusion even if one party's goods

I agree--note the dependence of any form of infringement on a case by case analysis of how the domain name is actually used.

Therefore any attempt to turn the DNS into a TM classification index won't work. And by the way, a proposal to use the 42 classifications as TLDs, by Simon Higgs, has been floating around for years. It's not a new idea.

This analysis actually support's Jon's point: a greatly expanded name space actually helps the cause of legitimate TM/IP protection. It will affect consumer expectations in the right way. It will undermine the automatic reliance on dot com, and encourage the notion that domain names are unique addresses and not a crude index.